by Gwen Moffat
‘This seems just a little over the top —’
‘It’s well hidden, right? That’s all that matters. We’re not playing games. Here, take these.’ And she handed over her bulging saddle bags.
Miss Pink dismounted and started down the slope, grimacing at the lack of friction on the bone-dry grass. She came to the fallen rowan and looked left. Shadowed rock showed above a growth of brambles and nettles. She followed a trampled line through the undergrowth and saw the cave: more a wide slit than a roofed cavity, but still a dark and secret place.
‘Perry?’ she called softly, ‘It’s me: Melinda Pink. I’m alone. Deborah stayed on top.’
It was her hair that showed first, like a dandelion in the gloom. She came out slowly, looking just the same: thin, mouse-faced, the sharp nose and large eyes, the yellow hair now showing dark at the roots. The eyes searched Miss Pink’s face hungrily but it wasn’t food she was after so much as company.
‘How long can you stay? Why didn’t Deb come down?’
‘She’s holding the ponies. How are you?’
‘I’m bored out of my skin. I got books though. Deb lent me hers.’
‘Why did you come here?’
‘They said the summer-house wasn’t safe any longer. You found it —’
‘I meant why didn’t you go to Scotland?’
‘Because they’d be watching the roads, and I don’t know no one up there. Here I got friends. What’s in the bags?’
Miss Pink handed them over and watched as Perry examined the contents, exclaiming at each item: chicken, sardines, a granary loaf, two cans of Coca Cola, Corbett’s Man-Eaters of Kumaon. ‘I love these people,’ Perry said. ‘They’re risking everything for me.’
‘The point is, they’re sure you didn’t shoot Isaac, and they’re going to keep you safely out of the way until they find out who did.’
‘How’re they going to do that? Clive told me you reckon I know something. What?’
‘If I knew that — Put it this way: it could be something you saw or heard and you haven’t realised it was important.’
‘Such as?’
Miss Pink spread her hands. ‘There’s a puzzle: questions and no answers. Why did Isaac come to Whelp Yard?’
‘He knew I was there. He must have followed Rick.’
Miss Pink stared at the girl who, misreading the signs, turned sulky. ‘How else would he know where I was?’
‘Quite.’ But Miss Pink wasn’t agreeing, merely responding. She tried again. ‘You had no contact with Isaac before then —’
‘I never had no contact, not then neither. I come back — I’d been hanging around the churchyard waiting to see Bags but Rick wouldn’t be able to make him leave the flat. He’s scared of thunder. So I gave up and come back to the house and there was all that blood in the kitchen. I got out of there. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Did you hear a shot?’
‘How could I: with the thunder, and buildings between me and Whelp Yard?’ Miss Pink was biting her lip. ‘So there’s no way I can help,’ Perry went on. ‘I’m as much in the dark as you are. I never even spoke to Isaac. I saw him that one time when we come down to the drowned village where I met Rick, and I never saw him again.’
‘He visited Edith. You didn’t hear anything that passed between them? Rick’s ceiling is thin.’
For a moment Perry was bewildered then she shrieked with laughter.
‘Shut up!’ The girl clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Sound carries,’ Miss Pink hissed. ‘Yes, I know there doesn’t appear to be anyone about but there could be a shepherd or a hiker below. Never mind. What’s so funny?’
‘She’s his sister, right? Edith and Isaac: they’re brother and sister.’
‘They were. Yes.’
‘I said we could hear them screwing.’
Miss Pink was silent for so long that Perry’s brain found the same track. ‘That’s it? He came to shoot me because Edith told him I’d said that?’
‘It could be a motive. If it were true.’
‘It’s not true. I were just teasing her.’
‘Why?’
‘The old cow, she called me a trollop, didn’t she? I said she were jealous because she were old, and I musta said something about her boy friend and she said he were her brother. I said that were all right, she couldn’t get pregnant at her age.’ She thought about this. ‘Actually,’ she said, more soberly, ‘I don’t think I said we could hear them in bed, I just suggested it like.’
‘What did you say exactly?’
Perry frowned, trying to remember. ‘You might have heard them talking,’ Miss Pink prompted.
‘You could hear her television — and her voice of course — she yells, don’t she? On the telephone. No, I never heard him, ‘fact, I don’t know that he did come visiting while I were there. It were Rick told me.’
‘You heard her telephoning.’
‘Not what she said. Rick shut his bedroom door. The telephone’s in her bedroom see, above his. So you can hear the noise like: her yelling, but not the words.’
Miss Pink reverted to the teasing. ‘How did she react when you suggested she had a sexual relationship with her brother?’
Perry tried not to smile — and then she remembered. She hadn’t liked that. ‘She sorta dribbled,’ she said.
*
A man was mowing the grass in the churchyard. DS Mounsey sat on a flat tombstone and contemplated a pair of blackbirds foraging in the wake of the mower. Coming home from Doomgate where she’d left her car, Miss Pink felt a sudden chill but she gave no sign that she’d guessed why Mounsey was there.
The male blackbird fluttered away with a chuckle of warning. Mounsey looked up and his eyes hardened. Miss Pink prepared her defences. ‘The inspector’s in the bookshop,’ he said, his tone loaded. This interview wasn’t going to be concerned with the skull.
From the doorway she peered into the shop to be met by weak smiles and sharp eyes. Dave was trying to convey something.
Mounsey was at her back and she felt crowded. Tyndale came forward, asking if they might have a little chat. Her eyes narrowed. He wasn’t the man for little chats.
The men entered her flat with the alertness of their kind, eyes flicking to open doors: bedroom and kitchen, resting a fraction longer on the closed door to the bathroom. She filled the kettle and switched it on, went to the bathroom, washed her hands and emerged, leaving the door open. She wondered if they might consider looking for Perry in the roof space.
‘What did Edith have to say?’ Tyndale asked, sounding mildly curious.
‘Edith?’ The kettle started to scream. She filled the teapot and came back. ‘She didn’t say much; she’d been at the cherry brandy.’
Mounsey rose from his chair and went to sit by Tyndale on the sofa. ‘Sit down,’ he said, in the kind of tone he’d use to his aged mother, gesturing to the chair he’d vacated. ‘You look tired.’
‘I’m an old lady.’ She retreated to the kitchen, poured tea into mugs and brought a tray to the coffee table. She sat down and regarded Tyndale expectantly. ‘So you visited Edith,’ she observed.
‘What did she tell you, ma’am?’
Edith could have told them the truth about last evening’s conversation. She hesitated, marshalling her recollections.
‘What time were you there?’ Tyndale prompted.
‘Early evening. I went straight there after I returned the pony to Orrdale House.’
‘You didn’t come home first? Why was that? You’d be hot and thirsty after your ride, the first thing you’d want would be tea. Then a shower.’
Miss Pink returned his gaze. ‘I’m fascinated by Joan Gardner’s death. Aren’t you? No, you have more recent matters on your mind. But I found Joan’s skeleton.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I was born curious; I had to know how it got into the peat, or rather, who put it there. If the skull was Walter Thornthwaite’s, you can guess my reasoning.’
‘Not really, ma’am.’
She sighed inwardly
. He was going to have her cross all the t’s and dot every i. ‘The accepted theory — except on the part of Anne Fawcett — is that Walter fled the country after killing Joan. But if that is his skull he died shortly after Joan disappeared. It could be coincidence: that he met with an accident right then, but I was struck by the fact that he didn’t go until some days after Joan vanished. I know some murderers do join the search for their own victims but that kind of man hangs around afterwards. If Walter intended to disappear why didn’t he go immediately after he murdered the child?’
‘His nerve broke,’ Mounsey said.
Tyndale ignored him. ‘What’s your theory?’ he asked Miss Pink.
‘It is only a theory.’ She was diffident. ‘That someone else murdered Joan and, as soon as opportunity offered, killed Walter and concealed the body, intending him to be the fall-guy. Which he was, of course. Presumably there’s a skeleton under those stones?’
‘What’s left of one,’ Tyndale said: ‘just fragments of bone.’
She nodded; it couldn’t be anything else. ‘So the timing of Walter’s disappearance gave me a handle to question — to visit Edith,’ she explained. ‘She confirmed that two or three days elapsed before Walter went, and she accuses him —’ She stopped, rather too suddenly.
‘She accused Walter of killing Joan?’ Tyndale exchanged a glance with his sergeant. Miss Pink felt uncomfortable, blackmail and Harald’s ‘confession’ bulking huge in her mind. She started to sweat; it was very hot in the flat.
‘Did she say who killed Walter?’ Tyndale asked gently. ‘Because you’d have told her the skull had been found.’
‘Of course I told her. She blames his wife.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Edith’s obsessed by jealousy.’
‘Where does Harald Fawcett come into it?’
‘Harald. She didn’t make a lot of sense. I expect she mentioned Harald — yes, I’m sure she did.’
‘And Isaac?’
‘Everyone.’ She went on wildly: ‘Even Jonty Robson. Edith hasn’t a good word for anyone.’
‘What did she say about Isaac?’
She stiffened. They weren’t concerned with the skull then, nor with Joan Gardner, but with Whelp Yard. ‘She said Isaac went to the Hoggarths’ that night because Perry’s a prostitute. I said: the woman’s unstable.’
‘What did she say about Isaac and Joan?’
‘Joan? Joan Gardner?’ Stupid, what other Joan was there? She was bemused; had Edith mentioned the two in conjunction?
‘She told us that Isaac killed Joan,’ Tyndale said.
After a moment she said weakly, ‘Why would he do that?’
‘The usual reason in such cases: to silence her after rape.’
She nodded faintly. ‘It’s the only explanation.’ It wasn’t but she needed time to think about this. She sensed that he was disappointed in her.
‘But she never mentioned Isaac to you?’ he pressed.
‘Not in relation to Joan.’
‘Is there something you’re not telling us, ma’am?’
‘It’s difficult to recall such a disjointed — I had to keep prompting — she must have been the same with you — exhibitionist. She has glaucoma and maintains she’s going blind. And she forgets, but there: memory plays tricks in old age. So confusing: dreams and reality. I can remember every detail of the dinner I had on my twenty-first and I can’t remember what I had to eat last night. Or whether I’ve taken my tablets...’
They were standing up. ‘If you do remember more, you have my number.’ Tyndale placed a card on the table. He smiled like a lizard. ‘We’ll go and see the Fawcetts, find out what they have to tell us.’ He paused, waiting for her reaction.
‘If I think of anything I’ll give you a ring,’ she assured him earnestly.
‘Think she will?’ Mounsey asked as they crossed the church yard.
‘She’ll tell us more when she thinks it’s convenient. Like this lot here.’ Tyndale nodded towards Nichol House.
The Fawcetts were home. ‘It’s all been too much for my husband,’ Anne said, ushering them through the hall. ‘I’m afraid of a stroke. Please don’t say anything to upset him. He’s very tired; I was just about to take him up.’
Tyndale didn’t believe a word of it but he looked sympathetic and said they wouldn’t be long, just a question or two, maybe Mr Fawcett — or any of them — might remember something. He was deliberately vague.
As they entered the drawing-room Harald and Clive turned from the french windows. In the rough grass outside Bags was attacking a stick with ferocious growls. Clive looked depressed at sight of the visitors but Harald’s face was that of the polite host. He moved to the sideboard, asking what they would drink.
Tyndale chose Glenfiddich, Mounsey favoured beer. Clive went to the kitchen. Anne relaxed a little. You couldn’t arrest a man for murder when you were drinking his whisky. In fact, police didn’t drink on duty... Did they?
Clive returned with a tankard of beer. Tyndale sipped his malt. They regarded him expectantly, except for Mounsey who was being pawed insistently by Bags.
‘Edith Bland,’ Tyndale began, ‘how long has she been like this?’ Clive frowned. Anne was rigid. ‘Like what?’ Harald said.
‘Accusing people of murder.’
Anne’s eyes blazed. Harald said brightly, ‘Since the first body came to light. The cadaver in the peat. Now there’s a title! I’m sure it hasn’t been used —’
‘I’ve only noticed it recently,’ Anne interrupted, adding in a rush, ‘but we’ve never had a drought like this before, not for fifty years. That’s what’s disorientated everyone. That skeleton could have stayed hidden for ever if the peat hadn’t eroded in the dry —’
‘ — and the village was exposed,’ Tyndale supplied.
She flinched as if he’d hit her. ‘Edith says Isaac killed Joan,’ he said.
‘Joan?’ Anne repeated on a rising note.
Harald was frowning. ‘She says Isaac murdered Joan?’
‘Actually she said "killed". It could have been unintentional. That wouldn’t be murder.’
‘It’s a fine point,’ Clive said, speaking for the first time. ‘He buried her; that implies guilt.’
‘You can feel guilty if you kill someone by accident,’ Tyndale told him.
Anne closed her eyes and turned away. Mounsey caught the movement but Tyndale was addressing Harald: ‘There have been at least two murders.’
‘The permutations are intriguing,’ Harald observed. ‘It could be three murders, or two, or one. It could have been three accidents; it’s a novelist’s conundrum.’
‘Isaac was murdered,’ Clive said firmly. ‘You can’t shoot yourself behind the ear with a shotgun.’
‘You could if you wedged it,’ Tyndale said.
‘Really?’ Harald looked fascinated. ‘That hadn’t occurred to me.’
‘You’d thought he was murdered, sir?’
‘Of course.’
‘Who would be the perpetrator, would you say?’
Anne had been fussing at the sideboard. Now she turned and stared at her husband.
‘I have no idea,’ Harald said.
Tyndale gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I thought you might have Edith in mind.’
‘No.’ Harald considered this. ‘She doesn’t drive. And why should she kill him?’
‘Why should I suggest you have her in mind for the killer? Because she accuses you.’ But Tyndale’s eyes had shifted to Anne. ‘Me?’ She giggled hysterically. ‘I killed Isaac?’
‘Oh no, ma’am. Walter Thornthwaite.’
Whatever they might have expected at the start they had not expected this, and now. They were immobile, as if the slightest movement would betray themselves or each other. Then eyes flickered, shoulders dropped, Clive gave an angry laugh. ‘We’ll have to get Edith into sheltered accommodation,’ he said harshly. ‘Although she seems OK physically? I mean, she’s not likely to burn the place down, or anything?’ Anne said nothing. He tried again. �
�The drugs she’s on — for the glaucoma — and she’s an alcoholic — maybe one of us should have a word with her doctor?’
‘She says the gable-end was brought down on him while he was still alive,’ Tyndale said.
‘No!’ Anne gasped.
‘No, ma’am?’
‘It couldn’t have been — I mean, no one could have done that; he had to be dead.’
‘Edith says —’
‘What is this?’ Clive shouted. ‘Stop badgering my mother! That woman’s crazy. For God’s sake, my parents had a good relationship. ‘Whatever happened, it had to be an accident —’
‘It wasn’t —’
Clive overrode him: ‘So it wasn’t an accident, then the most likely person who had it in for him —’ He stopped.
‘Was me,’ Harald said. ‘I killed him and pushed the gable-end down. Poor fellow. Are you saying he wasn’t dead when the stones fell? That’s dreadful, dreadful —’
‘He was dead!’ Anne cried. ‘Don’t listen to my husband, he’s tired, we’ve been out in the sun all day —’
‘It’s no good, my dear.’ Harald stood up and, taking her hand, brought her to sit beside him. ‘They know I’m not ga-ga, only somewhat eccentric when it suits. Now you keep quiet for a moment while we sort things out —’
‘He’s doing this for me,’ Anne said wildly, snatching her hand away. ‘Walter was nearly dead, just at his last — no, he was still alive. I pushed the wall down. It was the wall that killed him.’ She glowered defiantly at Harald, then at Tyndale.
‘It wasn’t,’ Tyndale said. ‘Now tell me the truth.’
Clive thought: they haven’t been cautioned, something’s going on here. ‘You know the truth,’ he told Tyndale coldly.
‘Yes.’
‘Then why ask them?’
‘I’m the one asking the questions, Mr Fawcett.’
‘I’m not —’ Clive caught his breath. His mother looked stunned. Harald, in the eye of the storm, was again expressionless.
‘Mr Fawcett — Harald — was the father of your baby,’ Tyndale told Anne, ‘and your husband wasn’t prepared to release you.’
